Frequently asked questions

RealZero Check is not designed to calculate company or holdings carbon emissions. The OECM carbon budgets have been developed by climate scientists to allocate carbon across industries, so company level analysis is outside the scope of RealZero Check.

However, investors may see the industry level data and do their own investigation to determine whether a certain company within an industry is making an outsized contribution to emissions and therefore to their holdings in the industry exceeding the carbon budget. In other words, if a company is 10% of the sector’s total holdings but is responsible for 50% of the emissions, it is likely this company is a laggard and harming the sector’s carbon performance. In this way, initial investigation through RealZero Check could be a tool to determine where investors may focus stewardship efforts – or even consider divestment – if they wish to align their portfolio to a 1.5 degree future and achieve progress towards net zero.

Imperfections in portfolio carbon data are outside the scope of RealZero Check to consider. The tool is designed to use the best information available to compare portfolios to the OECM carbon budgets. Companies may inaccurately report carbon data and this may be reflected in the portfolio data investors are accessing.

The RealZero Check Excel spreadsheet is emailed to you, once you download RealZero Check you access it in your own technology environment. It is not an online tool. Portfolio data and benchmark data uploaded by investors is in no way collected by Future Group or UTS, as the providers of RealZero Check we have no visibility on how users are using the tool. Your use of RealZero Check is as private and secure as your IT system is.

Scope 3 emissions data is useful when understanding the footprints of individual companies, but when looking at a system wide view (such as portfolio analysis) it can create triple counting issues. To match the analysis between the OECM and the carbon reporting of portfolios, it has been recommended to focus analysis only on scope 1 and 2 emissions in the initial release.

The IEA model accepts that fossil fuels will continue to be burnt, and projects that carbon capture and storage technology will be used successfully by fossil fuel companies. This technology is currently not commercially available, untested and unproven.

The IEA power generation pathway includes nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 812 GW and supply 8% of global power demand by 2050. The current capacity (globally) is 415 GW – of which approximately 380 GW are in actual operation – the remaining reactors are in long-term shut-down. Most nuclear reactors are over 30 years old and would need to be replaced. Thus, the IEA pathway would require at least 500 new nuclear reactors to be built. Given the many issues with nuclear power generation, including the storing of waste, we do not consider this a realistic energy transition pathway.

The OECM, on the other hand, focusses on cost efficient renewables, energy efficiency, renewable energy storage and demand side management technologies instead of the construction of new nuclear reactors.

We want to see the financial services industry make meaningful net zero commitments and measure real progress, because that is how we are going to protect a safe climate and meet the aims of the Paris Agreement.

Trust in financial services is weak, with more than three quarters of Australians expressing distrust in financial institutions in some surveys. A recent crackdown by the regulator on greenwashing tactics used by the superannuation and investment industry has also raised concerns over whether consumers can trust the claims